Rafael Benitez: Marco Materazzi is a liar

The defender, best known for provoking Zinedine Zidane into the fateful butt in the 2006 World Cup final, has been a persistent critic of Benítez since the pair worked together briefly at Internazionale.

Materazzi repeated some of his criticism in an interview with France Football magazine this week, describing playing under Benítez as like “being back at school”.

He also accused Benítez of making him remove pictures of previous Inter Milan bosses Jose Mourinho and Marcello Lippi from his locker, which the interim Blues manager denies.

It took only the mention of Materazzi’s name at Chelsea’s training ground on Tuesday for Benítez to respond forcefully. “He’s lying. He’s lying. He’s lying, just lying. Everything he has said is a lie. Simple.

"Everything about what he talks about: about me, the two things he said about me. About when he was talking to Mourinho, nobody knew about me going to Inter. And the pictures, it’s a lie. He’s a liar,” Benítez said.